"How can I be a gangster if I worked for the KGB?" Putin
told journalist Charlie Rose, according to CBS' translation.
"Come on. That does not correspond to reality."

Putin was responding to a claim made by Sen. Marco Rubio
(R-Florida), a 2016 presidential candidate.

Politico
reported that Rubio had accused Putin of being a gangster
last month.

"Russia is governed today by a gangster," Rubio was quoted as
saying at a Charleston, South Carolina, campaign
stop. "He's basically an organized crime figure who
controls the government and a large territory. There's no other
way to describe Vladimir Putin."

Putin, who has repeatedly tangled with the US, was a former
officer in the KGB security agency before entering elected
politics in Russia.

Putin is in New York City on Monday: He's scheduled to address
the United Nations General Assembly for the first time in a
decade and have
a rare face-to-face meeting with President Barack Obama.